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Japan Times
ASIA PACIFIC / Politics
Mar 27, 2013

India's Modi sets sights on top job

If Indians were to vote against corruption, a slowing economy and weak leadership in the 2014 national elections — all that urban middle-class population is roiled by — controversial Hindu nationalist politician Narendra Modi could win the office of prime minister hands down.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Mar 27, 2013

Track legends moved by interaction with athletes in Tohoku

Nine-time Olympic gold medalist Carl Lewis came to Japan hoping to boost the spirits of young athletes from the Tohoku region, but the track legend says it was he who came away inspired in the end.
ASIA PACIFIC
Mar 27, 2013

Chinese sentenced for military data theft

Measured in millimeters, the tiny device was designed to allow drones, missiles and rockets to hit targets without satellite guidance. An advanced version was being developed secretly for the U.S. military by a small company and L-3 Communications, a major defense contractor.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / Companies
Mar 27, 2013

Panasonic gets home solar sales lift

Panasonic Corp. said its solar-panel operation will probably remain profitable amid growing demand from domestic homeowners.
Japan Times
BASKETBALL
Mar 27, 2013

Basketball providing quality diversion in Miyagi Prefecture

Taking a look back at an action-packed Sunday in the bj-league. News, notes and observations...
EDITORIALS
Mar 27, 2013

Making clinical use of iPS cells

Japan's Institute of Physical and Chemical Research asks the health ministry for permission to do a clinical study using iPS cells to treat eye disease.
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Mar 26, 2013

Syria 'red lines' leave Obama flummoxed

The suspicious attack that killed 26 people in northern Syria last week exposed the difficulty of determining whether the Syrian regime has resorted to using chemical weapons, as well as the lingering uncertainty over how President Barack Obama would respond if what he has called a "red line" is crossed....
Japan Times
LIFE / Style & Design
Mar 26, 2013

Fashion that makes art more accessible

It is a sartorial surprise of the most poetic variety. Robert Montgomery — artist, writer, fashion collaborator — turns around, slips off his coat and flips up the collar of his crisp white shirt.
COMMUNITY / OBITUARY
Mar 25, 2013

Plummer regaled us with tales of lost seafarers

Katherine Plummer, a longtime Tokyo resident and a leading expert on the history of Edo-era Japanese sea drifters, passed away on March 11 in San Francisco at the age of 91.
Japan Times
WORLD / Crime & Legal
Mar 25, 2013

Long-ago wiretap inspires a battle with the CIA for more information

Paul Scott, the late syndicated columnist, was so paranoid about the CIA wiretapping his home in the 1960s that he'd make important calls from his neighbor's house. His teenage son Jim Scott figured his dad was either a shrewd reporter or totally nuts.
BUSINESS / JAPANESE PERSPECTIVES
Mar 25, 2013

'Abenomists' beware: Rising prices just one pitfall of spiraling yen

The Bank of Japan on Wednesday installed a new governor and two deputy governors who — in line with the wishes of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — are advocates of ultra-easy monetary policy.
EDITORIALS
Mar 25, 2013

Coping with a Nankai megaquake

It is estimated that economic damage from a magnitude-9 quake centered in the Pacific's Nankai Trough could amount to 40 percent of Japan's GDP.
COMMENTARY / Japan / SENTAKU MAGAZINE
Mar 25, 2013

Risks of using 'my number'

Japan's information technology industry could be the biggest beneficiary of the government plan to introduce a personal ID number system for citizens.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 25, 2013

Cyprus mess portends unsafe world for deposits

The controversy over a Cyprus bailout plan the past week raises fears that future financial crises in Europe will trigger bank runs by worried depositors.
Reader Mail
Mar 24, 2013

It takes more than an English test

The March 19 article, "Higher English test hurdle awaits ministry applicants from fiscal '15," has caused me some anxiety about the attitude of some Japanese toward English.
Reader Mail
Mar 24, 2013

Facade of national independence

In the March 20 article, "Abe firm on Futenma but vows respite," we read that the Abe administration is planning to commemorate April 28, the day in 1952 when Japan's sovereignty was restored under the San Francisco Peace Treaty.
Reader Mail
Mar 24, 2013

Nuclear retreat signals decline

In his March 12 Community page article, "Do dire predictions for Japan factor in a rush for the exits?," Colin P.A. Jones makes a tragic error, an error repeated all too often in the media by those critical of both nuclear power and Japan's general direction. He sees the government's response to the...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 24, 2013

Zen master indulges Japanese sword myth

'The one who kills is empty, his sword is empty, and the one who is attacked is empty, too. Thus the one who attacks is not a person. And the sword that strikes is not a sword. For the one who is attacked, it is just like cleaving in a lightning flash the breeze blowing in the spring sky.'
Reader Mail
Mar 24, 2013

The blame for maritime disputes

Regarding Michael Richardson's March 14 article, "China using Senkakus to test Japan, U.S.": According to Richardson, China is using the sovereignty dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands to test Japan and the United States.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Mar 24, 2013

Alterations of idealized beauty in China, Japan

THE SEARCH FOR THE BEAUTIFUL WOMAN: A Cultural History of Japanese and Chinese Beauty, by Cho Kyo (Zhang Jing), translated by Kyoko Selden. Rowman & Littlefield, 2012, 287 pp., $49.95 (hardcover)
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Mar 24, 2013

Abashiri astounds with its ice and convict connections

In April 1890, the Japanese government shipped more than 1,200 political prisoners from all over the country, including samurai insurgents from the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion against the government of Emperor Meiji. Nine years before, more than 250 years of rule by the Tokugawa shoguns had finally ended....
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 24, 2013

World faces rhino horn dilemma

Wildlife parts are valuable. A general rule of thumb is that the bigger the beast, the bigger the price. You don't get much bigger than a white rhino (3,000 kg). It is the largest grazing (i.e., purely grass-eating) animal that has ever lived. Its horn is worth, gram for gram, more than gold.
Japan Times
ENVIRONMENT
Mar 24, 2013

Gruesome death stalks the front lines of conservation

It is one of the most poignant photos I've taken during this CITES. We are in Khao Yai (literally, "Big Mountain"), Thailand's first and grandest national park. Peaks and plunges. Huge trees. Waterfalls. And there are elephants and even a few tigers out there. Also rangers and poachers and a largely...
COMMENTARY / COUNTERPOINT
Mar 24, 2013

In a nation shaken to its core, Japan's leaders offer more of the same

Roger Pulvers leaves Counterpoint at the end of this month after writing the column weekly since April 3, 2005. In his last three Counterpoints he has set out to consider in turn Japan in the past, present and future. This is his penultimate contribution.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Mar 24, 2013

Being a zombie is a no-brainer for this Japanese actress

Unlike many of her prim-and-proper friends at Shirayuri College — a Catholic school in Kanda, Tokyo — 20-year-old Akane Kanbayashi doesn't recoil at the sight of splattered blood and dismembered human bodies.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Mar 24, 2013

Abortion controlled by the state

TV personalities, or tarento in the vernacular parlance, wage a never-ending battle against encroaching irrelevance. They impose on our consciousness, and one of the easiest ways to do that without offering a compelling skills set is to exploit personal circumstances that are none of our business. Last...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 24, 2013

Mandatory retirement takes a leap forward

The angels that guard you / When you drive / Usually retire / At sixty-five
Japan Times
WORLD
Mar 23, 2013

As rival theories tumble, mystery of Stonehenge keeps scientists guessing

It already attracts more than a million visitors a year. Yet these numbers could be dwarfed once Stonehenge, one of the world's greatest prehistoric monuments, completes its radical facelift.

Longform

After the asset-price bubble crash of the early 1990s, employment at a Japanese company was no longer necessarily for life. As a result, a new generation is less willing to endure a toxic work culture —life’s too short, after all.
How Japan's youth are slowly changing the country's work ethic